Freezing cold

My studio has frozen during this cold spell - the clay is a rock solid, frozen lump. Luckily I had taken some nearly finished work into the house.

My sense of the value of practicing as an artist threatens to be freezing up as well, though not altogether a frozen lump as yet. I was talking to a colleague recently who was in an acute state of anger and frustration - the networks of favouritsm within arts administration, the rebuffs of past and potential patrons, the 'ignorant' masses who like 'rubbish' or don't care about art at all: the general alienation of an artist who works alone day after day in his studio, spending a minimal income on paints rather than food.

Such anger is fuelled, I believe, by an assumption that artists fulfill a 'sacred' role for which the expectation of acknowledgment and reward is justified. Where does this expectation come from? It is tragically unrealistic for so many, however serious their practice. Nevertheless, the fury and resentment is understandable to some extent given that it is so hard to define success in terms of whether an artist is good or not. Many good artists are unappreciated.

And what about the idea that artists fulfil an important role in society? On what grounds can the significance of the role be evaluated, and do all artists contribute to the fulfilment of this role, regardless of acknowledged status? Does an artifact only function as 'art' once it has received recognition or patronage as such, and if so, does the recognition of those without money or cultural sophistication count for less?

First, there is the idea that contemplating works of art is good for the viewer - an idea that goes back, I suppose, to Medieval religious iconography, with its educational role for the illiterate. Then the early modernist notion that exposure to art encourages 'virtue', or at least sophistication - an idea seeded, I suppose, in the need to educate the descendants of rough mercenaries into a dynasty of powerful princely rulers . Then, with industrialisation, the need arose to provide training to designers in order to manufacture competitive quality products. At the same time there was the desire to encourage 'virtue' in the general populace by access to art through public galleries. Art was definitely seen as a public good in those days. But now?

Admittedly the need for competitive design is stronger than ever in this age of digital design, advertising and fashion, and designers are presumably nourished by innovative 'fine art' production. But beyond market price, I am not sure how one would define the value of 'fine art' activity.

Within democratic capitalism the arbiter of value is sales figures - what people buy determines what is good. That would be simple if it were not for the role given to state art administration to guide and improve public taste by supporting and displaying the art people don't intuitively like. It comes with the proposition that this art is of a superior quality for the very fact that people don't want to buy it. As there is, however, so much art being produced that nobody wants to buy, you need academics and administrators to select the kind of art (or kind of artists) worthy of state support. Because state sponsored art has been thus judged more 'virtuous' in terms of public good or education, it's market value, ironically, ends up being much enhanced. As the prime virtue in liberal capitalism is monetary, this price inflation presumably serves the national interest.

The justification for selective state patronage of the arts is often underwritten by the proposal that the wrong sort of art production, and the wrong sort of patronage, is politically or morally unacceptable - a throwback to the socialism v. fascism, democracy v. totalitarianism, freedom v. repression cultural propagandas of the 20th century. Any theory about what constitutes value in the visual arts is likely to be housed within a fortress of dogma: it is war out there, promoting this treacherously ambiguous activity. Vulnerable souls can become little tyrants within their field, consumed with self-righteous prejudice.

Secondly, there is the benefit of the activity rather than the end-product. I was recently shown a painting by a young lad who displayed so much enthusiasm during art therapy sessions that it was decided to fund his higher education in art studies. The painting I saw consisted of inarticulate streaks of colour - but that was only my response: the lad is finding buyers, so others see value in his work. Yet it occurred to me that there might be some confusion here between different types of value, i.e. a celebration of the benefit to him gained through his enthusiasm for painting as opposed to a celebration of quality achieved within the work itself. Creative activity is undeniably beneficial in itself, whether to the individual for all kinds of reasons, but also serving the general good as a healing enterprise or one that fulfills social, behavioural and educational needs through projects of many kinds. There would be enough in that, except that it does not solve the problem of evaluating the benefit of the end product as opposed to the creative activity.

For many professional artists that I know, the compulsion that drives them on day after day is simply a dedicated search for quality. It might be that they themselves can't fully describe in words the quality they are chasing because it is a combination of elements articulated together in material form, so condensed in time and place as to be non-transferable to verbal or textual articulation. If they are clever, they select aspects which sound familiar enough to be well-received, or they might even fabricate some impressive promotional material - after all one is being asked to do this all the time, and it is given more weight than the actual work, which after all often only reaches its audience as a mere shadow of itself in reproduction. It might be that an artist will never find an audience for the quality they are seeking: there is no reason why this should be guaranteed.

Yet the artifact is of course honed with a viewer in mind, but the viewer as an equal, not a target, if that makes sense. It is the growing resolution of the artifact which speaks both to the artist and the imagined viewer, in other words, the emphasis is on the powers of expression embodied or revealed within the artifact. The artist serves the artifact, not the other way round. This is why I could not say about any of the artists I have in mind that their activity is (or was, some being deceased) selfish or egotistical, as some people might consider in view of the resources committed and the lack of return. It is depressing really, but also remarkable that they remain(ed) so committed. It is like the myriad of seeds nature produces annually, of which only a few fall on fertile ground.

The artist I most respect in this regard remains Eric Peskitt (deceased), who never once communicated any signs of paranoia about the lack of interest shown towards his work. In spite of his expressed understanding that he was unfortunate enough to be active in an era that was unreceptive to his concerns as an artist, he remained as totally focused on exploring the means by which he could achieve the quality he sought as if the most discerning and generous patron was at his door.

Flags and Banners

It seems such a long time since I was working in the studio in the proper sense. Since mid-Summer my focus has been occupied with the flags and banners commission for the Out There Festival which took place in St. George's Park in Yarmouth in September and then on the Transitions Project which culminated in a November exhibition at the Exhibition Galleries in the Central Library in Yarmouth. Information about that project and all the works included in the exhibition have been uploaded to http://eastcoastnettransitions.wordpress.com/ and does not need repeating here.

But I thought I would post a few images of the flags and banners produced by local people. Ten larger banners were created by a small group of children with special needs attending two workshops at Caister High School, and thirty flags and forty pendants were created over three family workshops in surrounding villages. The theme was red, white and blue, and most of the flags and banners were created using collage, a technique which the particpants used with glorious boldness and invention, although it involved long hours of making good.

Thanks to Manuel Seixas for the photographs.

Doubt

Thinking about the text in my last blog, I realised today that I had made the fundamental error of using the term 'held true'. I fully appreciate the absurdity of using the word 'true' in reference to art. It is possible to consider that a scientific theory holds true for the time being, i.e. until proved otherwise, if it successfully resolves an enquiry based on available information and experimentation. But can the same term be used for artifacts of the kind that we call an art object? I am not even sure what I meant by the expression.

I certainly did not mean that the created object is itself an embodiment of something held to be true, though I suppose religious works may be considered as such by believers. Perhaps it is something to do with the nature of the urge to create - a synthesis within the object of the creator's intent and the means by which this intent is being carried out. I would have said creator's quest, because this seems relevant when considering Manet, Cezanne and Van Gogh as in the previous blog, but the associations suggested by quest are modern, and limiting. What about artifacts created by artists for whose quest there might be little sympathy - a political or social issue, for example, or even a matter of taste? Does that prohibit their work from 'holding true', and if so, then it is more to do with the viewer's than the maker's judgement. How about artifacts that might now be called art objects which were created within a cultural context other than our own? The intent might be contrary to our contemporary value system - thinking about cult objects for sacrifical ceremony, for example - yet be so integral to the object that it cannot be evaded. Where such objects appear to a modern viewer to 'hold true', is that to do with the response of the viewer or something inherent in the object?

Some artifacts do have a quality of completeness in themselves which preserves them across time, place and context and perhaps it is that integrity which I meant by 'holding true'. That and more, for I suppose an object that achieves integrity, or has a convincing existence complete within itself, or a vitality that almost breathes life, can invoke or reflect the inevitability of its context, for better or worse. Perhaps we treasure great artifacts from different and often seemingly alien societies across time and place because they affirm the human spirit which is able to regenerate value or structure (and the necessary belief in the same) again and again, collapse after collapse.

I quite like this idea of 'holding true' because it does not discriminate between what we now call fine art and other types of making, but it does discriminate between an artifact that communicates intensity or visual articulation in the making process and one that displays a lack of such attentiveness (or skill). The principal would apply whatever the intent, and when it as dense as Manet's or Cezanne's, it is all the more remarkable, I think, to see it achieved.

Salvator Rosa

There is a wonderful article by Julian Bell in the latest edition (Vol32 No23) of the London Review of Books, titled Make Something Happen! It covers two books published this year on Caravaggio, one by Michael Fried and the other by Andrew Graham-Dixon, a book on Salvator Rosa by Langdon, Salomon and Volpi along with Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of 17th Century Italian Painters by Richard Spear, Philip Sohm et al.

According to Bell, 'Rosa's ambitions were wide, his gifts narrow'. 'Rosa, more than any painter before him, came to live for the exhibition. "I have risked everything to achieve fame," he told Ricciardi as he pitched his powers against Veronese's - a climax to two decades in which his year had pivoted on Rome's big March exhibiton, held at the Pantheon, and its August one, at San Giovanni Decolato. Xavier Salomon....describes Rosa reaching 'a level of panic, overworking and exhaustion every summer, in the Roman heat' as he prepared for the August show.' Bell sees Rosa as 'a protagonist who summons up, through his own vivid cantakerous presence, an early form of modern art culture. That's to say, a scene that revolves around goods to hawk, strong personalities (Rosa's letters constantly brandish his own 'eccentric genius' ) and public fora.'

I mistakenly thought the entrepreneurial processing of art as commodity began with the galleries, dealers and auctions of the 19th Century. But it would seem that already in the 17th it was necessary to create novelty in order to sell - hence the 'Bamboccianti" who developed a new product line 'depicting rogues and poverty' to meet the 'fresh vogue for the plebeian that was sweeping the market'. The high achievers learnt how to bluff up their selling price, inflated on notions of genius, to "clients desperate not to make fools of themselves before a great master." Whilst an artist like Guernico, "who charged for canvases on a straight figure by figure rate," was scorned for his 'artisan practice, letting down the profession: hopelessly pre-modern.'

In looking at the low achievers in this early stage of the rat race, Bell quotes Sohm: 'The gap between poor and rich, and the uncertainty of regular employment, resemble the income inequality and working conditions of Venice's courtesans more than its master craftsmen, teachers or bureaucrats. '

For some reason this immediately brought to mind Manet's scathing 'Olympia' painted in 1863 - his model, herself a musican and member of the Parisian milieu of artists and bohemians, staring out the voyeur spectator with her brazenly knowing gaze. I believe she emigrated to America some time later.

I also enjoyed. in this same issue of LRB, T.J. Clark's review of Cezanne at the Cortauld - a heart-warming eulogy to Cezanne the painter, 'obsessed by looking and painting', rather than the Cezanne who inspired an avalanche of theoretical texts.

It seems to me that Manet and Cezanne, along with Van Gogh, stand out as giants of intelligence compared to the supposed philosopher artists of post-modernism. That's because, I suppose, they were rooted still in the struggle to create meaning or value through the practice of painting. It was their integrity as painters that honed their acute awareness of the challenges that faced them and gave them the resolve to push the boundaries towards a synthesis of sensibility and making process that held true. For them, art was never, I believe, a matter of art for art's sake, though the writers of art theory have since encouraged the substitution of searching practice with a magical turn of new for new's sake.

It's very reassuring, however, to read such well-written and thoughtful articles in the London Review of Books.